8 Ball Aitken is the redneck preacher at the shotgun wedding between country and blues.

It doesn’t matter which part of the family you’re from — what does matter is the funky foot-stomping hullaballoo at the all-night party afterwards. 8 Ball has just finished a mega gig run, playing thirty-two shows at the Tamworth Country Music Festival in January.  The Tamworth Tapes is the fourth album for the red-headed musician, and he takes a swampy alt. country/blues & roots turn at the Country Music Capital of Australia, recording straight to tape, and playing every instrument on the album himself.

‘The Tamworth Tapes’ was written and recorded by Aitken in celebration of his experiences as a musician in Australia’s Country Music Capital. “This album was inspired by Australian life — and the people and places I meet and see on the road”, he explains. “To me, it sounds like Australia.”

The wild-man roots musician returned to Australia from playing in Nashville and Memphis, USA, a lengthy German tour, and an Australian national tour in 2011. Tour highlights have included performing at the prestigious Folk Alliance International Festival in Memphis to standing ovations and packed crowds – and on the Australian leg of the tour, watching an over-excited bikie driving his Harley Davidson motorcycle right through the pub and up to the bar during his show in Humpty Doo, NT.

With a career that takes him continually on the road across Australia and overseas, 8 Ball Aitken has performed in Australia, North America, and several countries each within Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific. His current schedule sees him touring the world for ten out of every twelve months. In between long-haul plane trips, he’s crisscrossed Australia, playing throughout New South Wales, Victoria, Australian Capital Territory, Queensland, Northern Territory, Western Australia, and Tasmania each year.

“I still love Australia, and it’s my favourite place in the world to come back to,” the FNQ banana-picker turned guitar-player notes. “It’s always so great to come home to Oz!”

With his sizzling hot style of original ‘honk, stomp, Aussie swamp’ country, the larrikin guitar wrangler gets audiences up and dancing everywhere he goes.